Dream Analysis

Dream from Katie …

I was in an oddly shaped, stone building yet it was something of a public building where one would routinely cross paths with strangers who would eventually become familiar. My dream occurred in the bathroom, as I kept going in and using the bathroom throughout the dream. Each time I would go to the bathroom I would meet and interact with a stranger. These strangers became familiar to me and I would get to know pieces of their stories. The one stranger interaction that is very clear to me was with a young, disheveled looking woman. She informed me early on that she and her family were eating her dead baby. She seemed to be in a state of numb shock but was going through the motions and processing this experience with me. Each time I met her in the bathroom she would inform me of the state of her child’s body. One meeting her child was not yet cold but spongy like. Another time the body was getting cold now and hard and the fact that they were eating it was just a strange disgusting reality to her and me. I just listened to her and felt her sadness with her. Each time I would go to the bathroom it was dirtier and getting dirtier. The room was dark and cold yet it had the sense of being ordinary and these interactions with strange women, familiar. I learned of stories and got to know these women strangers as we passed by in the bathroom.

Dreamer’s Associations
The building felt eerie and hollow, medieval. I associate this building with fear, being on my own, cold, adventure, a quest, bravery, needing courage.
The stranger/ women blur together, I only remember the one vividly. They were women whom I did not know but got to know through this base human process we do in the bathroom. I felt indifferent at first to them but grew in warmth and caring and understanding. I had the sense of being a part of a web of relationships. I do have a high value in knowing and understanding women. I lead women’s circles and study and explore women’s spirituality regularly. I am really into Women who run with the wolves.
The young, disheveled woman was sick looking; thin; had a front streak of bright color in her hair; dyed, stringy hair. She herself seemed hollow, shocked, sad, resigned and lost. She was eating her dead baby but not of her own initiation she was just going along with it. She had lost her own voice. She was incapable of acting from an authentic, healthy core place within her. Her insides were deadened and numb. She may be an archetype of the woman, lost to her own self and intuition. She’s more like a puppet, doing the things that her master desires of her, without thought or resistance. And she’s doing an abominable thing. Cannibalism of her very child. She’s eating the new life from her womb.
The bathroom was gross, dirty, dark, cold, disgusting and yet common. Maybe I could associate this with the common filth of life.

Dreamer’s Bio
I am a mother of two toddlers and I stay at home with them. I am also a dancer and passionately persue my dance career aside from my mothering. I am into holistic living, gardening, living simply, and feminist spirituality. I lead a New Moon circle with women friends in the neighborhood and we are going through Clarrissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves. It is probably my favorite book. I am a Christian of sorts. My family is a part of an intentional Christian community of Mennonites who live together in the city and share resources, money included. I am a chronic spiritual seeker, trying really hard to make sense of both Christianity and feminist spirituality and my pagan inclinations. I love women. I have many female friends and thoroughly enjoy learning about women and hearing our stories and experiences.